MEPs agree working relations with Barroso

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has negotiated a deal with senior MEPs about his future co-operation with the European Parliament, to be put to a vote on 9 February.

The deal was concluded yesterday (27 January), as MEPs sought further concessions before giving their approval to his line-up of commissioners, which is also to be put to a vote on 9 February.

Barroso has promised a “special partnership” with the Parliament over the next five years, with closer communication and co-operation between the political leadership of the two institutions to secure better and faster results.

Barroso has agreed that he and his counterpart, Jerzy Buzek, the president of the Parliament, will attend high-level meetings of the other institution, such as the weekly meeting of the college of commissioners and the Parliament’s twice-monthly meeting of political group leaders, when their agendas included issues of mutual interest including legislative and budgetary matters.

But in the negotiations Barroso held out against some of the Parliament’s requests, arguing that he could not go beyond what was provided for in the Lisbon treaty.

Barroso refused to give the Parliament a decisive say in the appointment of special representatives for foreign policy and the heads of the EU’s delegations abroad. They are appointed by Catherine Ashton, the high representative for foreign and security policy. They will appear before the Parliament’s committees, but only after they have been appointed.

The Parliament will, however, be given a seat in some international negotiations involving the EU, as well as a right to more information about international agreements.

Barroso agreed that the chairman of the relevant Parliament committee would have a place in delegations to international negotiations that are led by the Commission. This would include trade negotiations, including World Trade Organization talks. But the Parliament would be an observer only, and not a party in the negotiations. Where a Council of Ministers representative was leading for the EU on the talks, such as on the SWIFT deal on sharing electronic banking data with US law enforcement authorities, or the Copenhagen climate-change negotiations, it would be for the Council to decide if there were room on the delegation for an MEP.

Some MEPs had wanted the Commission to pledge that it would make legislative proposals in certain policy areas if requested to do so by the Parliament. But Barroso argued that this would infringe the Commission’s right of initiative. Instead, the Commission will give its formal answer to requests for legislation from the Parliament within three months and produce legislation, if it decides to do so, within a year. A Commission source pointed out that the Commission had responded positively to the majority of requests from the Parliament in recent years.

Those leading the negotiations for the Parliament were German centre-right MEP Klaus Heiner-Lehne, who chairs the group of committee chairmen, Austrian Socialist Hannes Swoboda, a vice-president of the Socialists and Democrats group, German socialist Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, chairwoman of the Parliamentary reform working group, UK Liberal Diana Wallis for the ALDE group and Rebecca Harms for the Greens.

The conclusion of the negotiations ensures that the Parliament’s vote on the Barroso II Commission will go ahead on 9 February. A nomination hearing for Kristalina Georgieva, who has been put forward as Bulgaria’s European commissioner following the withdrawal of Rumiana Jeleva, will be held in Brussels on 3 February from 12.30pm to 3.30pm.